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June 7, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
A Crisis of Confidence
in US Leadership
June 6, 2002
Michael Colby
White House
vs. EPA:
Political Hot Air and
Global Warming
Ron Jacobs
The Indo-Pakistan Conflict:
It's Just a Shot Away
Francis Boyle
Take Sharon
to The Hague:
Prosecute Israeli War Crimes
at Jenin
CounterPunch Bulletin
60 Minutes and President Chavez's
Censored F-Word
Mark Weisbrot
Spying
and Lying:
The FBI's Shameful Past
June 5, 2002
Robert Fisk
Berlusconi the Censor
Danielle Brian
Nuclear
Plants and Terrorism
Ardeshir Cowasjee
For What Do We Fight?
George Monbiot
Kashmir
on the Brink
Michael Neumann
What is Antisemitism?
June 4, 2002
Dave Marsh
Bono the Useful Idiot
William Evan / Francis
Boyle
Kashmir:
Invoking Intl. Law to Avoid Nuclear War
Cockburn / St. Clair
The Future Wellstone Deserves
June 3, 2002
Ramdas / Makhijani
India,
Pakistan and Nukes:
A Road Map to Peace
Fran Shor
Meanwhile, Back in Afghanistan
Neve Gordon
The Caterpillar
Effect
June 2, 2002
Fidel Castro
From FDR to Mister "W.":
Cuba, the US and Democracy
Arundhati Roy
Under the
Nuclear Shadow
Bernard Weiner
Bush 9/11 Scandal for Dummies
June 1, 2002
Norman Madarasz
The
Strange Math of Roberto Carlos: Brazil v. Turkey
Gavin Keeney
Bush and Mies van der Rohe:
Architecture and Ideology
Jeff Halper
Sharon's
Post-Incursion Plan:
Incarceration or Transfer?
Walt Brasch
Crumpling the Constitution
Resources:
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About 9/11
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Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
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Reviews of Gore:
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June 7, 2002
Howard Zinn's
Terrorism and War:
a review
by Tanweer Akram
War, terrorism and violence have been around since
the dawn of written history. Since 9/11, terrorism has been a
topic of renewed, widespread and vigorous discussion in the United
States and in the Western countries. Yet the lack of intensive,
balanced, and fair discussion incorporating both retail and wholesale
terrorism is rare in the annals of Western intellectuals.
Most high-paid pundits of mainstream
newspapers, such as Thomas Friedman, William Safire, and Nicholas
Kristof of the New York Times, and avant-garde chic radicals
such as Christopher Hitchens of the Nation refuse to look at
the underlying causes of terrorism or consider the devastating
effects of Western state terrorism. Terrorism
and War, a collection of interviews with Howard Zinn
by Anthony Arnove, is an honourable and rare exception. It is
a part of a series of publication that includes 9/11 by Noam
Chomsky, Bin Laden, Islam, and America's new war on terrorism
by As'ad Abu Khalil, and Terrorism: theirs and ours by Eqbal
Ahmad. There is now clearly a public demand for an alternative
perspective on war and terrorism. Seven Stories Press is to be
lauded for trying to fill a critical gap.
The atrocities of 9/11, which was a massive
terrorist attack against  American civilians, must be condemned,
and its perpetrators should be brought to justice and be punished
in accordance with national and international law. It is a pity
that instead of undertaking a lengthy and painstaking investigation
and searching for the culprits, the US authorities chose the
option of war. The Taliban's demand for evidence as a precondition
for handing over Osama bin Laden was not an unreasonable request.
Whether the Taliban regime's offer was a serious one or merely
a ruse, one will never know because the US authorities refused
to even pursue negotiations and instead chose to fight that increased
the scale of violence and suffering and did little to reduce
the risk of war and terrorism.
This book will benefit those readers
who seek to understand the situation rather than resort to jingoist
polemics. Arnove successfully follows David Barsamian who has
established a literary tradition of probing, through indepth
interviews, the thinking of progressive intellectuals from the
left. Zinn's writings remain refreshingly clear and <poignant.Arnove>'s
questions allow Zinn to elaborate on his views. The book starts
with Zinn's analysis of the events of September 11. As a historian,
he provides an overview of United States' long record of war
and state terrorism. He rejects the notion of lining up behind
the president and calls for dissent.
By reading establishment newspapers such
as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Business
Week one can gain a good understanding of the events of the world
if one reads between the lines and the inside pages of these
papers. As always a critical eye and a skeptical mind if what
one needs to uncover the truth. Zinn agrees with the historian
Gabriel Kolko that war increasingly is war on civilians despite
the talk about precision bombing and high technology. He recalls
America's long history of anti-war activism and opposition to
war.
There are seven interviews in the book.
Zinn's conversations with Arnove are lucid and vibrant. Appendix
A of the book lists the key passages from the Geneva Convention
which explicitly states that civilians should not be objects
of attack and that acts that are designed to promote terror among
civilians are prohibited. All the evidence gathered so far suggest
that the United States war in Afghanistan and Israel's military
assault on the West Bank have been in violation of the Geneva
Conventions.
Several suggestions can be made to enhance
the value of the book. It contains two useful maps of Afghanistan,
but an additional map showing the country's location in Asia
would help readers who may be unfamiliar with Afghanistan's location
on the globe since geography is not yet taught as a subject in
many schools in the US.
If the publisher plans to bring out a
second edition of the same book, Arnove and Zinn may find it
worth while to discuss in details the wars of terrorism in Colombia
and Palestine. Having edited an excellent study of the US sanctions
against Iraq, Arnove is particularly well placed to analyze the
devastating effects and after-effects of wars on civilians.
Moreover, Arnove and Zinn can explore
the practical issues of broad-based anti-war coalition in the
United States. Interestingly in the US not only progressive people
and the admittedly marginal left political groups are opposed
to the war but also many anti-state right libertarians and old-style
conservatives, such as those at antiwar.com,
have voiced strong, consistent and honourable opposition to the
war, much to their credit, albeit for somewhat different reasons
that of the left. It is hoped, however, new alliances surmounting
the traditional divisions between left and right can be formed
on the anti-war issue. Broad-based opposition to war of terrorism
is much needed in our times.
The struggle for peace is likely to be
long and arduous. In times of war, most "intellectuals"
support state power and the social sciences' and humanities'
establishment is devoted to serving power interests even in relatively
free and open societies such as the United States.
Hence, books from alternative perspective,
such as Terrorism and War, become indispensable because they
provide a glimpse of truth and aid in deciphering the news in
the leading journals of our times and the distortions of governments
and corporations.
Tanweer Akram lives
in Alexandria, Virginia and can be reached at: ta63@columbia.edu
Today's Other Features:
Tom Turnipseed
A Crisis of Confidence
in US Leadership
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